In Your Bed
by Kitt Chaos
Summary: Aya wonders why, whenever he's injured, he invariably wakes up in Yohji's bed. Warning - there is some bad language in this story.


Summary: Aya wonders why, whenever he's injured, he invariably wakes up in Yohji's bed.

Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz and all its characters, are the legal and intellectual property of Takehito Koyasu and Project Weiss and any entities he has granted legal rights to. I claim no rights at all with my story.

Warning: There is bad language in this story.

Acknowledgment: Some time more than a year ago, Tex-chan and I talked about writing a story together centered around Aya waking up in Yohji's bed after his car is blown up. Our schedules never quite meshed well enough for the actual 'writing' together part of that, but we did have a few conversations about the concept. Tex-chan's excellent 'Ground Zero' is her fully-actualized vision of the concept (go -- now -- and read it) and this modest little ficlet is my result from those conversations.

**In Your Bed**

The touch that wakes me is surprisingly gentle. Someone strokes lightly through the bangs of my hair, evidently smoothing them out of my face. A remote sort of curiosity stirs.

_Mom?_ Maybe I'm sick. It is that sort of a touch, infinitely tender, and loving; almost hesitant, as if I might break if handled too roughly.

Memory, brutal and inescapable, rises up within me. No, not Mom. Not now -- not ever again. The reflex of light from spectacle lenses flashes in my memory, bringing all the tragedy rushing back. My hatred for Takatori Rejii burns through me still. My sister, struck down by the car rushing Takatori away from the scene of his small "clean-up operation" still lives, but...

My mother -- my father -- taken from me, their remains cremated in the fire that seared away my childhood. Fire... Something about fire... More recent, more immediate ...

Almost of their own accord, as if it will help me remember, my eyes drift open. It takes an alarmingly long moment for them to focus properly. When they do, I sort of wish they hadn't. Gazing down at me with a hungry, vapid expression is one of Yohji's pin-up girls. She's so artificially well-endowed, and well, obvious, that it's no wonder he's such a horn-dog all the time if this is what he wakes up to each morning.

I'm going to have to have a serious discussion with the stupid playboy about this. I know he claims it's for a legitimate and logical reason that he brings me here whenever I'm badly hurt -- since his room has the most comfortable bed and certainly the most comfortable bedside chair, but still... Sometimes he makes me wonder. He's so blatant and over-the-top in his pursuit of women that it occurs to me sometimes he might be... Naw. He's never shown any sort of interest in men. The girl staring down at me reminds me that I know, against my will, what Yohji's into. He's even got that ridiculous lighter that advertises to the world what he likes best. Our playboy is a boob man. Thankfully, I'm free of that sort of encumbrance.

My body reacts, but not to Yohji's girl. No, it's as if hundreds of swords suddenly slash through me and leave pools of pure agony in their wake. Everything hurts so much that I can't even begin to catalog what's the worst to try to master the pain of it somehow.

What happened to leave me in such a pathetic state? Oh, yeah. My car exploded, with me very nearly in it at the time.

I bolt upright at the memory of flames reaching up like the fingers of damned souls hungry for fresh company.

"Aya!" I'm caught up in a painfully fierce hug. Damn, this hurts! If I had any strength at all ... Yohji's voice rasps close to my ear. "You aren't going to have to worry about bombs, or Kritiker, or Schwarz taking you out, 'cause I'm gonna be the one doing you in, if you keep worrying me like this!"

Okay, I admit it. Yes, I'm an assassin, and there are times it feels as if my soul has died, leaving only the vow I made on the smouldering embers of my house, my parents, and my childhood alive within me. Love, companionship -- hell, even friendship -- these are for other people. I am not worthy of such things, my hands so stained with blood; my soul and innocence drenched in blood to the point of drowning in that red tide of spilled life. My pale echo of life is hidden now along with the dark beasts, in the shadows where they dwell. My existence is one of reaching out to take them out, one by one by one by one... until the day, whether by age and exhaustion, or in a final surrender to the blackness filling my soul, I permit my skills to slip that fateful time and one of those beasts takes _me_ out.

Still ...

It's comforting to think that at least one person cares. If I had died in the explosion, Yohji would have cared. He would have mourned. Most days, that's enough -- to push the blackness aside -- for even just one more day -- and not wander so eagerly near the margins of death's domain. I'd rather send the dark beasts -- who deserve it far more than I do -- over that edge with the edge of my katana.

Still ...

It takes a supreme amount of effort, and nearly all my strength, but I ball my right hand into a fist. I reel alarmingly and damn near fall out of the bed as I clout Yohji clumsily on the ear. Finally, he lets me go jumping up from the bed and glaring at me for hitting him.

"Dammit, Kudou!" Hell, my voice is too weak. I try to put more power in it -- to roar instead of whimper. "Why the hell must I always be waking up ... in your bed?!"

Crap. That took all my energy. I slump back onto the pillows and hang onto the tiniest thread of consciousness with all my will. Damn him. He knows I'm tapped out.

Yohji looks down on me with the sweetest, most unguarded, and genuine smile I've ever seen. "Who the hell else is going to put up with you, Aya? You are the worst, most ungrateful patient, ever!"

He leans down and starts fussing about straightening the covers over me, adjusting the pillow under my head making me want to reach up and punch him by cooing all the while as if I were merely a child staying home from school with a fever. I'm still too weak to do anything to stop him. Protesting, as I've learned from experience, will only make him play at this longer. I grit my teeth (well, mentally, anyway) and wait for him to finish.

"Should I tuck you in and give you a kiss on the cheek?" Yohji asks in a falsetto voice when he's finished.

Oh, _hell_, no.

"When I'm feeling up to it -- I'm going to fucking kill you, Kudou."

"Then who would take care of you when you do stupid shit like get yourself blown up?" Yohji asks as if he is the very soul of reason.

"I can take care of myself!" I hiss out between gritted teeth. Damn it that it comes out as a weak whisper.

"Yeah, I can see that. Just like ice is a bit 'chilly'. Knock it off with the 'I can take care of myself so leave me the hell alone' routine, Aya, and get some rest. We've got to figure out who blew up your car before they think to target my Seven."

Yohji's light attempt at teasing does what logical reason did not. Abruptly our situations flip, and he is in the bed, weak and shivery, and I am the one who waited desperately for him to open his eyes and talk to me so that I knew he was all right. I shiver and this time it's not my body's delayed reaction to shock causing it. Without another word, I turn my head into the pillow and close my eyes.

"We'll catch the bastard who did this, Aya," Yohji tells me solemnly as he tucks the covers around my shoulders.

"No, Yohji. We'll kill the bastard who did this. I loved my car." ... and, I don't dare put a name on what I feel for you, and Omi, and Ken. Unnamed, I can deal with it, catch glances of it out of the corner of my eye. If I face it straight on, if I name it, if it turns out to be kin to what I felt so long ago for my parents and for my sister -- I wouldn't be able to ... There's no way I'd be able to blithefully enter a dangerous situation with you again. No more ... no more hostages to fortune ...

Red, orange, and gold dance up and taste my consciousness away with tongues of fire. I am too weak to master my mind to push the nightmare reaching for me away on my own. Dammit! My recurring nightmare of fire is going to fuck me over mentally at least as bad as that explosion did physically. I muster enough strength to fight against dragging sleep enough to crack open my eyes. Again, that long wretched moment waiting for them to remember how to focus alarms me, but they finally do.

Staring down at me is one of Yohji's vapid-eyed, well-endowed pin-up girls. I haven't got the strength to smile that her ridiculousness does what my will is too weak to manage now -- banish the nightmare.

Stupid playboy. I'll never tell you that waking up in your bed is sometimes exactly what I need.

-end-


End file.
